Restoration, not demolition, says Luneta Hotel’s new owner

By Allison Lopez
Inquirer
First Posted 00:08:00 12/13/2007

Filed Under: Local authorities, Monuments & Heritage Sites

MANILA, Philippines – Beaumont Holdings, the new owner of the Luneta Hotel in Manila,
yesterday announced that the 89-year-old structure would be restored to its previous glory in
three years’ time.

“We will make it stronger. We will not touch the facade,” Adelina Wong, an engineer of the
company, said.

The hotel on T. M. Kalaw Street, one of the few remaining structures that survived World War II,
has been undergoing “structural rehabilitation and retrofit” since it was bought by Beaumont last
August.

Completed in 1918, the Luneta Hotel was designed by Spanish architect-engineer Salvador
Farre, according to a study by Dean John Joseph Fernandez of the University Of Santo Tomas
College Of Architecture.

It is being touted as the only structure reminiscent of French Renaissance architecture with
Filipino stylized beaux arts in the country, Fernandez said.

The dilapidated building fronting Rizal Park was declared a historical landmark by the National
Historical Institute and is protected by Presidential Decree 1505 which makes it unlawful to alter
or destroy the original features of an edifice classified by the NHI “without prior written permission
from its chair.”

Members of the Heritage Conservation Society were initially alarmed over reports that Beaumont
had applied for a demolition permit but company representatives and Manila building official
Melvin Balagot assured them that the permit issued only allows structural rehabilitation.

Vigilant

“We are vigilant when it comes to that. Mayor (Alfredo) Lim’s directive is always to abide by the
law. The mayor wants to preserve historic buildings especially if there is a law that protects them,”
Balagot added.

In May 2006, then Manila Mayor Lito Atienza urged the Department of Public Works and the
owners of abandoned private buildings to demolish old and “dangerous” structures, including the
Luneta Hotel.

At that time, the hotel was in a state of deterioration due to lack of maintenance, having been
uninhabited for a long time. There were also signs of decay, including weakened columns due to
old age, falling concrete plaster and a nearly collapsing ground floor frame. The basement was
also flooded. The threat to public safety especially during earthquakes, stressed Wong, was the
immediate reason for the retrofit using modern technology.

Put simply, retrofit would mean “constructing a new structural steel-framed building inside an
existing building” to make it safe and sound.

Architect Dominic Galicia, HCS board member, said he was satisfied with the restrictions for the
structural renovation which specified that “the existing exterior building (architectural facade)
would be retained, there would be no alterations in the existing major architectural treatment and
no additional floor levels shall be allowed.”
Whimsical

In a 1998 article, Inquirer columnist and HCS founding member Bambi Harper described the
“whimsical gargoyles in the form of lions, crocodiles, griffins and other mythical creatures that
serve as decorative supports of (the hotel’s) balconies.” She also talked about the “delicate
filigreed railings (on the balconies) that add a touch of lightness to the solid concrete facade.”

The structural renovation would be completed in a year’s time, said Wong, after which work on
the architectural appendages would begin.

Luneta Hotel is a defunct hotel located in T.M. Kalaw Street and Roxas Boulevard in Manila. The
hotel is in the Art deco style of architecture that was very popular during the early American
period. The hotel is owned by the Litonjua family, and still stands to this day but has ceased
operations as a hotel. It is now converted as a storage building. The old edifice is being
considered for demolition.

Luneta Hotel and the Beautiful Era

04-78039
If not for the remarkable Belle Epoque design of the facade, it would be difficult to think
that once in a more beautiful time; the hotel had been home to the vibrant life of hisociety and
foreign visitors to the jewel of Asia.
When it was built in 1918, the six-storey hotel towered at an undefined T.M. Kalaw
street. It faced an unfenced bermuda plane of the Luneta. Its neighbors are no more than
blocks of humble bahay na bato and bodegas. It stood out because of its grandeur in a
very foreign fashion. Back then it symbolized among many things, the pacification of the
islands and the promise of progress under a new colonial master.
During World War II, however, the Luneta Hotel became a brothel of American G.I.s
who were off to Corregidor after Manila had been declared an open City. Surviving
veterans of the war still recall how the hotel served as a gleaming hope when it withstood
the bombardment and how it was turned into a purgatory of earthly pleasures for soldiers
facing eminent death.
The burnt out building survived but never recuperated from its war wounds. The Luneta
has been renovated in 1972 but the hotel in its namesake has continuously deteriorated
since then. The building is a monument to an era where people used to do things
differently- more relaxed and elegant, where windows are not mere peeking holes but
studs of diamond and ruby that compliment a luxurious art deco frame. It is elitist but
even the elite of the now don’t measure up to the elegance of this hotel. The closes to art
noveau they could get to is noveau riche. It was a time when balconies to a hotel room
were actually functional and you could take a cup of tea sitting on it.
In its early years, the hotel became a testament of European imports that stormed Manila.
It was a time of beauty, innovation and peace. The decadent hotel has been known to
serve rich breakfast and lunch, exotic among foreigners of the time. But the
sophistication of the Luneta Hotel demanded high-maintenance and so it is neglected
rather tarnished even by its owners. No less than President Dwight Eisenhower wrote
about its beauty, “This Luneta was for more than 4 years the scene of my habitual
evening walks. To this day it lives in memory as one of the most pleasant, indeed even
one of the most romantic spots, I have known in this entire world. Leaving the front
entrance of the Luneta Hotel in the evening, I could walk to the right to view the busy
docks where Philippine commerce with the world was loaded and unloaded. From the
hotel, looking across the peaceful waters of Manila Bay, I could see the gorgeous sunsets
over Miravales. Walking toward the Club of the Army and the Navy, and looking down
toward the city itself, I nearly always paused for a moment before the statue of the great
Jose Rizal before returning to my quarters.” Now the pleasant and romantic spot is a
mere shadow of what is used to be and nobody can leave the front entrance of the hotel.
There is not a window without a broken glass and everything just seems either damp or
brittle. Unlike Eisenhower, the city mayor seems indifferent. For him and the profit-minded owners
of the building, when nobody dines or billets the hotel that should be the
end of it. Even all the claptrap cannot prevent the insides from chipping away.
They just don’t do things like they use to anymore. No more of the elegance and
burloloy, for which the Filipino culture is known for. We do away from anything that
looks fancy to live up to a false concept of minimalism. Business establishments, even
hotels, resort to a no-nonsense kind of money-yielding and saving architecture. It’s just
interesting to note that the gargoyles that adorn the building are meant to keep the water
away from the walls so it would maintain a pristine appearance. It isn’t just burloloy, it
actually has function.
The Luneta Hotel is a derelict where lifelessness abounds except for the trees that grow
on the roof. Like the Jai-alai and the YMCA, it is another structure threatened by the
wrecker’s ball. Why shouldn’t it? After all, the era of beauty is way past our generation
and these structures resembles more an extravagant gravestone complete with stone
angels to guard it than anything else. It is bitterly ironic that even though this building
predates any other structure in the vicinity, it seems out of place to the ugly looking
structures that surround it today- skyscrapers which have deprived the structure of sun it
used to claim alone. The Luneta Hotel is too much for a city like Manila. Manila is so full
of everything else other than beauty for which Daniel Burnham planned it for. The hotel
still faces the famous park of Luneta. To the east and its backend, cramped buildings
block the view of its grotesque architecture from behind. The only view of the hotel faces
the sunset of the bay. Its walls would turn into gold when the sun strikes it at high noon
and onwards. The gem still sparkles as if there wasn’t wartime or demolition. Inside, the
staircases and ballrooms crumble. When fire hit it last year, nobody even gave blink to
feel sorry about it. Of course, the Heritage Conservationist and the old fashioned were
teary-eyed. They should be. We all should be but, what’s to burn inside anyway? Manila
is a dead city, a beautiful corpse, and it is in buildings like the Luneta Hotel that we have
a glimpse of its once beautiful life.
Luneta Hotel and the Beautiful Era
04-78039 Luneta Hotel and the Beautiful Era
04-78039 Geronimo “Jun” F. Cristobal was born December 5, 1986 in Isabel, Leyte. He is a lover
of the arts, dancer, painter and bemedalled athlete. While growing up, he frequented a
small library in the town and had books of Gregorio Zaide and Ernest Hemingway as a
favorite read. He also attributes most of his artistic influences to Leyte’s vibrant culture
and the people he came to know there. In 2003, he studied Journalism in UST but left
after a year to pursue a career as a writer of fiction. Jun is currently finishing his
bachelor’s degree in Malikhaing Pagsulat at the University of the Philippines where he is
a resident of the UP Artists’ Circle Fraternity.